One nutter, one knife – that’s all it takes for the kind of tragedy we saw in America last night to happen here.
Guns are far less easily obtained in Britain, but anyone who thinks that our own politicians are much less vulnerable than their US counterparts is alarmingly naïve.
I wonder how many MPs and their families slept well last night, after learning of the appalling murder of activist Charlie Kirk? Of course, their first thoughts would have been with the victim and his family, and the terrifying risks associated with being a controversial public figure in a land with more guns than people. What may well have followed was another disturbing reflection: “Might the next victim be me?”
Be in no doubt: our parliamentarians are haunted by the spectre of some crazy with a weapon lying in wait on a street corner; or sidling up to them for a selfie – only to stab them in the front. And they’re not wrong to be worried. At the precise moment that doctors were desperately fighting to save Kirk’s life, some crackpot appears to have been setting fire to the constituency office of a Labour MP in Tyne and Wear.
It took six firefighters to extinguish the blaze at the building where Sharon Hodgson – a member of Labour Friends of Israel – sometimes works. In an apparent reference to the time that has passed since Israel killed a Hamas leader, the culprit (or culprits) spray-painted an accusatory message on the wall: “328 days blood on your hands.” This, just a week after a hater saw fit to spray paint the walls of Angela Rayner’s ill-fated Hove property.
These acts of vandalism, in a year that two homes and a car linked to Sir Keir Starmer were also set alight, highlight the very real physical risk to British politicians and their property.
Quite rightly, few let their unspoken fear get in the way of the job. In recent years, most have made some operational tweaks, such as vetting strangers that seek face-to-face appointments, but most are determined to walk tall, engaging directly with their constituents and the wider electorate as they did before various horrors.
Nonetheless, all walk in the shadow of poor Jo Cox, murdered by a (genuinely) far-Right madman who shouted “Britain first” as he repeatedly stabbed and shot her days before the EU referendum.
Like so many lone wolves who carry out such crimes, the killer, 53-year-old Thomas Mair, an unemployed gardener, had not been on anybody’s radar.
And that is what is so terrifying for our politicians and other political activists: all manner of security measures can be put in place, and routinely are, but there is almost no way of spotting sick saddos who while away their lives behind closed doors and closed curtains, poring over dark stuff on the internet.
Here in Britain, Left-wing politicians appear to be at least as vulnerable as those on the Right.
Back in 2010, an unhinged young female Muslim came perilously close to killing Stephen Timms, the Labour MP for East Ham, stabbing him in the stomach during a constituency surgery. Who would have thought the 21-year-old undergraduate from King’s College London – described by her tutors as an “outstanding student” – would turn so violent, but there it was.
Then there’s David Amess, the most recent victim, who stood out in Parliament not for being outspoken, but for being the exact opposite: a quiet, unassuming, dedicated public servant, who was far more interested in the cause than in promoting himself.
This gentle man was murdered by an Islamic extremist of Somalian heritage, who appears to have chosen his victim almost at random, having paid six visits to the address of Michael Gove that same year, and researched other MPs, including Mike Freer and Keir Starmer.
The impossibility of stopping every dark actor hellbent on terror does not absolve all of us in the political arena from some responsibility. Treating those with whom we disagree as more misguided than evil – an approach the Left seems to find particularly difficult – would certainly be a good start.
One nutter, one knife – that’s all it takes for the kind of tragedy we saw in America last night to happen here.
Guns are far less easily obtained in Britain, but anyone who thinks that our own politicians are much less vulnerable than their US counterparts is alarmingly naïve.
I wonder how many MPs and their families slept well last night, after learning of the appalling murder of activist Charlie Kirk? Of course, their first thoughts would have been with the victim and his family, and the terrifying risks associated with being a controversial public figure in a land with more guns than people. What may well have followed was another disturbing reflection: “Might the next victim be me?”
Be in no doubt: our parliamentarians are haunted by the spectre of some crazy with a weapon lying in wait on a street corner; or sidling up to them for a selfie – only to stab them in the front. And they’re not wrong to be worried. At the precise moment that doctors were desperately fighting to save Kirk’s life, some crackpot appears to have been setting fire to the constituency office of a Labour MP in Tyne and Wear.
It took six firefighters to extinguish the blaze at the building where Sharon Hodgson – a member of Labour Friends of Israel – sometimes works. In an apparent reference to the time that has passed since Israel killed a Hamas leader, the culprit (or culprits) spray-painted an accusatory message on the wall: “328 days blood on your hands.” This, just a week after a hater saw fit to spray paint the walls of Angela Rayner’s ill-fated Hove property.
These acts of vandalism, in a year that two homes and a car linked to Sir Keir Starmer were also set alight, highlight the very real physical risk to British politicians and their property.
Quite rightly, few let their unspoken fear get in the way of the job. In recent years, most have made some operational tweaks, such as vetting strangers that seek face-to-face appointments, but most are determined to walk tall, engaging directly with their constituents and the wider electorate as they did before various horrors.
Nonetheless, all walk in the shadow of poor Jo Cox, murdered by a (genuinely) far-Right madman who shouted “Britain first” as he repeatedly stabbed and shot her days before the EU referendum.
Like so many lone wolves who carry out such crimes, the killer, 53-year-old Thomas Mair, an unemployed gardener, had not been on anybody’s radar.
And that is what is so terrifying for our politicians and other political activists: all manner of security measures can be put in place, and routinely are, but there is almost no way of spotting sick saddos who while away their lives behind closed doors and closed curtains, poring over dark stuff on the internet.
Here in Britain, Left-wing politicians appear to be at least as vulnerable as those on the Right.
Back in 2010, an unhinged young female Muslim came perilously close to killing Stephen Timms, the Labour MP for East Ham, stabbing him in the stomach during a constituency surgery. Who would have thought the 21-year-old undergraduate from King’s College London – described by her tutors as an “outstanding student” – would turn so violent, but there it was.
Then there’s David Amess, the most recent victim, who stood out in Parliament not for being outspoken, but for being the exact opposite: a quiet, unassuming, dedicated public servant, who was far more interested in the cause than in promoting himself.
This gentle man was murdered by an Islamic extremist of Somalian heritage, who appears to have chosen his victim almost at random, having paid six visits to the address of Michael Gove that same year, and researched other MPs, including Mike Freer and Keir Starmer.
The impossibility of stopping every dark actor hellbent on terror does not absolve all of us in the political arena from some responsibility. Treating those with whom we disagree as more misguided than evil – an approach the Left seems to find particularly difficult – would certainly be a good start.